19 Things People Need To Stop Saying About Global Warming.

This article is based on "Global Warming & Climate Change Myths". If you're interested in reading more, check out the link at the bottom of the article.

"Global warming" and "climate change" are two buzzwords you'll hear thrown around on an almost daily basis. And without fail, after you use one of them, someone is bound to jump in and say "But it's not real!" Are they right? Is global warming really not happening? The scientists at Skeptical Science teamed up to break down some of the most popular misconceptions and claims about climate change.

1. But the climate has changed before.

Yes it has. There have been numerous fluctuations in the Earth's climate before, usually caused by greenhouse gasses. In cases where the global temperature increased rapidly it caused mass extinction. However for the first time humans are at the root of this problem -we emit copious amount of CO2 at a much faster rate that the Earth naturally emitted in the previous global warming events.

2. It's probably the sun.

Since the 1960s the sun has actually been cooling, while global temperatures continue to increase leading scientists to think that the sun's activity is unrelated to global warming.

3. Meh, it's not that bad.

Though there are some positive effects of global warming on plant and rainforest growth in the Amazon, the negative effects on the economy, food chain, agriculture, drinking water, and plant growth elsewhere can't be ignored. Developing countries will take the brunt of this chain reaction as they are less equipped to adapt and may become involved in disputes over limited supplies of water and food as some of the negative effects have more impact.

4. The science community doesn't agree on this.

In 2011 a study by the Skeptical Science team studied 12,000 papers published between 1991 and 1993 with the subjects "global warming" and "global climate change". Approximately 97% of them concluded that humans were the cause.

5. The Earth isn't heating, it's cooling.

The last decade was one of the hottest on record. It's important to take into account more than just air temperature (which may be what people think when they think "cooling"). There's also temperature over oceans, humidity, glaciers, and sea levels to consider when looking at global temperature increases.

6. Models are unreliable.

Climate models are mathematical representations of natural phenomenon like atmosphere and the sun to estimate climate trends. They're tested using a process like hindcasting where information is fed into the model from a previous decade to see if the model can accurately predict what will happen in the next 30 years, and then those conclusions are compared to what we know actually happened over those 30 years. Climate models have already accurately predicted many of the phenomena we've been seeing over the past few years.

7. The greenhouse gas effect has been debunked.

The greenhouse gas effect describes how the the surface temperature is approximately 33 degrees warmer than it would be if there were less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The first evidence for the gases were discovered by John Tyndall in 1859 who found that certain gases like carbon dioxide could trap heat. Without this effect the Earth would be like the moon - uninhabitable.

8. Animals and plants can easily adapt to changing temperature.

Human invasion of temperate forest areas and exploitation of fisheries and forests will have a catastrophic impact on biological diversity. A recent review concluded that 60% of the world's ecosystems are now degraded and extinction rates for some species are exponentially higher than they were hundreds of years ago. A team in the UK estimated that 18% of plant species and 35% of animal species will be doomed to extinction by 2050 due to climate change.

9. The hottest year in recent record was 1998 so the world isn't warming.

The hottest 12-month period ever recorded occurred from June 2009 to May 2010. Regardless, individual pockets of warmer or colder years mean little unless they're contextualized in a larger trend. The trend for 1997 to 2012 indicated that the temperature is increasing at .11 to .12 degrees per decade.

10. Scientists can't accurately predict the weather so they can't predict the climate.

Firstly, weather forecasts are very accurate and that accuracy has improved over the past few decades with the advance of technology. Secondly, climate and weather predictions are separate models. Climate predictions are designed to predict climate averages as opposed to weather models that predict specific changes in weather conditions.

11. In the 1970s we predicted that there was an ice age coming.

Approximately 10% of papers published about climate change in the 1970s predicted that the Earth was cooling. Temperature recordings at that time did show that the Earth was cooling leading some scientists to think that we may be approaching another ice age in the next few centuries. Using technology today we can conclude that this cooling trend was mostly in the northern hemisphere and the overall global temperature was fairly normal.

12. We cannot acidify the oceans to an extent that it could be measured, let alone have negative ramifications.

25-30% of CO2 emissions produced by humans are absorbed by the ocean. This does not mean that ocean water will turn to acid. It means that as acid levels increase, pH levels will decrease, leading to the dissolving of coral reefs and degradation of many oceanic species.

13. Al Gore got it wrong.

Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth premiered in 2006. Since then more data has come out that continues to support the findings he presented. There was one flat out error in the film - in one slide he misattributed the cause of Mount Kilimanjaro's shrinking to climate change when it was actually caused by deforestation. Contrary to popular belief, he was not prosecuted for any findings in the film. There was a civil court case in the UK regarding the film's distribution in schools which cited that the film was scientifically incorrect. The court settled that it could be shown.

14. The Medieval Warm Period was hotter than this.

The Medieval Warm Period (800-1400 AD) may have been warmer than the 2010s in several areas of the world, specifically in the North Atlantic where we see evidence that sea and land ice reduced in the Arctic allowing for Viking travel. Overall global temperature today is visibly warmer than global temperature at that time though. Also the Warm Period has been attributed to natural causes: increased solar radiation and decreased volcanic activity, which are different than the man-made causes of our current warming.

To some extent this claim is actually true. Extreme weather has always been reported. Rising temperatures do increase the odds of extreme weather events happening though.

16. Mars is also getting warmer.

We have no concrete data about the climate of Mars prior to the 1970s so it's impossible to say what trends are occurring or if there are, why they're happening. There physical geography of Mars and it's placement in relation to the sun are vastly different than Earth's so comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges.

17. It's a 1500 years cycle.

The 1500-year cycle describes how warming in the northern hemisphere cyclically matches cooling in the southern hemisphere, however the overall temperature of the planet remains the same. The heat is simply being redistributed and is an entirely natural process. Global warming is not.

18. CO2 produced by humans is a tiny percentage of CO2 emissions.

It's the other way around: naturally occurring CO2 emissions are the tiny percentage. Atmospheric CO2 from natural land and ocean carbon is building up and additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels for electricity. Technically human output 29 gigatons of CO2 and the environment naturally outputs 750 gigatons of CO2 but the environment can only absorb approximately 40% of the additional CO2 we create, meaning all excess CO2 is caused by humans.

19. Humans aren't causing global warming.

Humans emit 29 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere. As carbon is burned to create carbon dioxide, oxygen levels decrease. Fossil carbon, carbon from fossil fuels, builds up in the atmosphere and prevents heat from escaping to space. Instead the heat returns to the Earth and global temperatures increase. If the global warming was caused by a natural phenomenon like the sun we would have seen increases in temperature in both the upper and lower atmosphere, but in fact most of the heat is being trapped in the lower part.

Have you ever found yourself in an argument so stupid and/or pointless that you were sure you were being punked? Like you keep looking away from the other person to check your surroundings for places Ashton Kutcher and a camera crew could come popping out of?

Brace yourselves, folks. Some of these arguments are breathtakingly bonkers. The sheer number of people who are willing to argue with someone over provable facts and what that other person likes or doesn't like is just ... stunning. It's stunning, you guys. Just not in a good way.

Saturdays

My husband and I have this thing where we only say "I love you" on Saturdays. Every other day it's "I love you, but only on Saturdays." I don't know how it started, but it's been going for 11 years now.

We're both shiftworkers, so sometimes we have to stop and think what day it actually is. We had an argument recently over whether it was Saturday or not. I said it was Saturday, he said it was Friday. It was Monday.

Iraq

I remember when I was about 13 my parents had an hour-long shouting match that ended with them almost getting divorced. The issue? Whether or not the nation of Iraq has a coastline.

My mother arguing that Iraq had a coastline, while my stepdad argued that it did not. This was back in 2004, and they are still quite happily married to this day. That incident is something they look back on and laugh about, and both of them admit it was really a pretty stupid thing to argue over.

Mini Wheats

When we were kids my brother and I got in a physical fight because he said I like mini wheats and I insisted I didn't. His argument was that I always sang the mini wheats song and I was deeply offended that he wasn't aware that it was just stuck in my head but I hated the cereal. I actually did like the cereal I'm not sure why I was arguing with him about it but I remember how genuinely angry I was.

Crayons

I'll tell you about the only legal trouble I've ever been in, the fight that got me arrested. It started over whether we should return a box of crayons or not, and to this day I don't have any idea how it escalated to the point of the cops being called, but they were and I was the one taken in.

That's Unfair

My boyfriend insisted that when two people are in an argument and one makes a point so reasonable and logical the other one can't disagree with it - it's unfair. I tried, logically and reasonably, to explain several times why that is just winning the argument, proving your point thoroughly and is completely fair.

Emailing NASA

A Non-Standard Ruler?

I worked for a company that made signs. We had a customer ask for signs that were 7mm wide that were to go on a door. Our sign makers figured the order meant inches because 7mm is pretty small, so made them 7 inches. I got a phone call from the customer who went mad at me for making them the wrong size. So I put a reorder through for 7 mm.

Argued with the sign makers over it but they eventually agreed to do it after I shown them the order in writing. I even had the customer put her complaint in writing, reiterating the size they wanted.

7mm signs went out and a day later I get the customer on the phone literally screaming at me.

Cue the dumb argument - we ended up having an argument over how big a millimetre is, and obviously everyone in the office were laughing, but this customer just wouldn't accept it and said we must be using a non-standard ruler to measure.

Ended up being escalating to the sales department manager who refused to issue a refund. We still don't know what they actually meant.

This Unusual Vegan Argument

Was in a pub with a few friends, and some random Dude dropped an ear, and somehow figured I'm vegan. Well, people like him are the reason I usually avoid mentioning it. He came up to me and insisted on starting a discussion about veganism. He claimed that by the end of it, I would be eating meat again.

He listed some stupid arguments, I told him I was not convinced and then tried to keep on drinking beer with my friends. He followed me, and wanted me to "try to convert him to a vegan." I stupidly listed some of my reasons thinking it would make him go away. He told me he still was not convinced, so I was like whatever. Again, I really just wanted to drink beer with my friends.

That dude followed me all night and expected me to try make him vegan. Doesn't matter what I said, and all the reasons that for me are obviously good enough to be vegan. He'd be just like "No, that doesn't convince me, therefore your argument and how you life is stupid."

Didn't matter how often I told him that I honestly don't care; 5 minutes later he would come up to me again "I'm still not vegan, so veganism is stupid, all your arguments were stupid, now give me a good reason to become vegan!" At one point, I was literally yelling at him that I don't give a single flying f about what he eats and why, that it's in no way my responsibility to "turn somebody vegan" and in no way his business what I eat.

Honestly, for that dude, I would have bought a whole ham, just to shove it up his stupid annoying face.

Monty Python

In college my roommate and I argued about a line in Monty Python & the Holy Grail. The scene with the Black Knight where the line "Alright, we'll call it a draw" is uttered. We argued about who said that line, whether it was King Arthur or the Black Knight.

It went on for hours longer than it should have because I was stubborn and refused to admit I was wrong.

Albert or Arnold

Below Sea Level

I live on an island and when you go upland and you look out the sea looks like it's higher than or on the same level as the land. It's just a weird perspective thing because of the horizon. One day some kid says that it's because the island is under sea level.

I'm like wtf bro all of us would be with the fishes. He argues that no that's not true and if I just go upland I'll see. We then spend a good 5 minutes of my time arguing about it until I decided to leave this kid in his stupidity. He even said we shouldn't believe everything adults tell us and sometimes we need to think for ourselves.

This kid was older than me and was going to a good school. Lost my respect for him ever since then.

Tomash

Now, my name is in a lot of languages with slightly different spellings. I would have accepted any of those spellings, but this one was just... Not even close. It didn't make any logical sense.

An analogous example is if my name was Thomas and someone was insisting it was spelled Tomash. And not just the name Thomas in general, but that me specifically, on my birth certificate, was named Tomash. I know how to spell my own name.

Whales Are Mammals

I was in an online chat room one day, and we were talking about whales. I commented on how whales are mammals and the next thing you know, someone was arguing with me and trying to convince me that a whale was a fish.

Shower Schedule

No Balloons For Grandma

My cousin and I argued over a balloon going to Heaven. We were at his big sisters prom send off and he let a balloon go and it went high into the sky.

He then said this balloon will go up past space and go to Heaven and reach grandma (God rest her soul). And I was like no it's not and it's probably not even gonna reach space. Releasing balloons is terrible for the environment and kills/harms so much wildlife.

He got really mad and defensive and started telling me to google it and do my research and I'm like I don't have to google it you idiot. He was mad at me for a good week.

Spontaneous Dolphin Existence

How dolphins reproduced. It took me a few solid minutes of explaining to her that dolphins have reproductive organs and that they did not just pop into existence. The argument began with her saying she wanted to work with sea creatures.

Personally, I hope she was messing with me cause I lost a little faith in humanity that day.

Male Chickens

Lightning McQueen

Me and my friend were drinking underage, we ended up in an argument of whether lightning McQueen's eyes were blue or green. Somehow throughout the whole thing both of us never thought to straight up google a picture.

Andre 2000?

I'm late, but I saw this question and instantly remembered that I was booted from a Facebook group because I called someone out on a lie that was not only bull, but extremely pointless. She was friends with the moderator and they made the case that my argument over such a little lie was more of a problem than the lie itself (though they didn't refer to it as a lie.)

The woman said that she used to babysit for Andre 3000 and that his name was Andre 2000 - but he changed it after the year 2000 had passed. This was so easily disproven it was ridiculous. Their debut album came out in 1994 and he was already going by Andre 3000 at that time.

The argument wasn't a huge long drawn out thing, but the fact that either of us were on Facebook at separate times meant that the responses were over a long period of time so this argument lasted a few days.

Stars Like Our Sun

Richard Nixon

I have a degree in history. I mostly focused on nationalism. Wrote a 50 page paper on it and Richard Nixon with around 50 100 sources. Looked at micro film for hours on end. Part of the paper focused on how Nixon being chair of the house committee of Unamerican Activities was used as a powerful weapon to use against political enemies. It also inspired Joe McCarthy. Have had people tell me I was wrong and Nixon was never elected to a position besides the president and Joe McCarthy came before Nixon. I stopped trying to talk history to people.

I also know quite a bit about the history of the Balkans its amazing how many Serbs refuse to believe Tito did anything wrong.

Wrote 100 page paper on nationalism in Israel. Its frustrating to talk about because for some reason a lot of people think Palestinian firing rockets randomly into Israel is ok but if Israel retaliates the people get up in arms over a targeted air strike that kills 3 people.

Balloon to Heaven

My cousin and I argued over a balloon going to Heaven. We were at his big sisters prom send off and he let a balloon go and it went high into the sky. He then said this balloon will go up past space and go to Heaven and reach grandma (God rest her soul). And I was like no it's not and it's probably not even gonna reach space.

And he got really mad and defensive and started telling me to google it and do my research and I'm like I don't have to google it you idiot. He was mad at me for a good week.

Binder Clips

I got into an argument with a co-worker over how we were attaching two pages of a letter together: small binder clips or paper clips.

He felt that paper clips would leave a "dent" in the paper when removed, but binder clips won't. He refused to staple them together. I felt that binder clips would also leave a "dent", so we might as well just use the paper clips.

It ended with him saying: "Do what you want [me], I don't care!" and storming off.

Lingerie Boxes

Late to the party, but there it is.

I'm a manager at a small store. We're only 4 working there, so my team and I grew very close and we joke around a lot. Once during a slow shift, my employee and I had an argument because we were looking at the lingerie boxes, and I thought that two specific boxes had the same woman on it, but she was 100% positive they weren't the same person.

Looking back, I don't know why it was such a big deal to us at the time, but we even called another employee who lives across the street to come and tell us what the heck was up with that. Turns out I was right, and she was pretty salty about it. It was a great night.

Wicked Witch of the West

I almost got into an argument with an old girlfriend over Glinda the good witch from Oz. She insisted that Glinda was manipulating Dorothy to assassinate the Wicked Witch of the West and convince the Wizard to leave to create a political void she could fill.

I conceded the issue when I heard the whole premise because I thought it was too damn stupid to get worked up over.

Keep Your Hands to Yourself

Just the other day I legit got in an argument with my co-workers on why I don't like my butt being grabbed by anyone (I'm a guy). Seriously.

They went on about "I don't mind it. Mike and I do it all the time and we don't care." Yeah, that's nice dude, but I'm not you, and there's something called "Keep your hands to yourself" (which was taught to a good portion of us growing up). Just like how Karen wouldn't like it if I touched her boobs or her grabbing your crotch or frankly ANY area you wouldn't like being grabbed, keep away. In general, you should not be touching me in any areas after I've told you not to several times before.

Telekinesis

My best friend and I argued over whether or not telekinesis was possible. Her argument was that humans don't yet know what the human brain at 100% usage was capable of, and that telekinesis was inside the possibilities.

Ghosts

How dolphins reproduced and whether or not ghost existed (back to back with the same person). It took me a few solid minutes of explaining to her that dolphins have reproductive organs and that they did not just pop into existence (the argument began with her saying she wanted to work with sea creatures).

How it shifted to the existence of ghosts is a solid and reasonable question to ask (I don't remember why). I had to then proceed to tell her that ghost hunting TV shows do not constitute as undeniable evidence.

Personally, I hope she was messing with me cause I lost a little faith in humanity that day. This was in high school SO... hopefully she was kidding.

Dogs and Chocolate

I told this stupid woman that chocolate is toxic to dogs. She went on to tell me how a little bit will just make them hyper and then they will calm down. I told her to google it. Her and her bf shut right up. Now they have a kid. Good luck, Jeremy and Andrea. morons.

I should also add that this argument started because Jeremy was giving his tiny dog chocolate and I told him it was toxic.

Is water wet?

Mission Trip

A kid a church telling me about the mission trip I went on. Not only was I not on that trip, but I had never been on any mission trip. We were good friends, so it's not like he would've mistaken someone else for me.

He insisted I was there as if an entire week long trip would just fall out of my memory. He even had stories of things we'd done together. I'm not sure if he thought I was lying, joking, stupid, or crazy, but I was pretty sure he was some combination thereof.

Dragon Tales

One time I got into a shouting match with my mom and little brother in the car. The issue? The names of the two-headed dragon from the PBS kids afternoon show Dragon Tales. I swore it was Zack and Macie.

It was actually Zak and Wheezie. I don't even remember why we were yelling about it.

Green Or Yellow?

When I was about 15 or so my mother and I spent about 20-30 minutes arguing about the color of a shirt. We agreed it was blue/green, but to me it was just a shade more blue, while to her it was just a bit more green.

Turns out, your eyeballs yellow as you age and hers were 24 years yellower than mine, so I think that skewed her color vision.

Stars In Their Multitude

I once got in an argument over whether or not a line from the song "Stars" in Les Mis says "...but mine is the way of the lord" or "mine is the way of the law".

I didn't even really care what he thought but he was so adamant and cocky that it got me heated. By the end of it we were shouting at each other and I had to apologize, which I think is what he wanted the whole time.

Biology Class

I had an argument with a girl IN THE MIDDLE OF A BIOLOGY CLASS in high school about how humans are not mammals. She thought a human was a human and we are not mammals because "mammals are animals and humans are not animals"

I tried explaining to her the difference between reptiles and mammals and how humans fall under the mammal category to try and educate her... but she just wouldn't listen.

Solid Or Liquid?

Some classmates and I got into a heated debate as to whether or not the human body could count as a soup, salad, or sandwich. The teacher got mad at us, but hey! All we were doing was watching a movie.

For the record, my logic lays with soup- Liquid contained within a solid, at a hot temperature.